International Review of Economics Education最新文献

This paper reviews journal articles in the area of economics teaching and learning published during the past two years, namely calendar years 2020 and 2021. Our intention is to provide scholars in economics departments with a critical and selective overview of some of the main trends and highlights of the scholarly literature as it pertains to economics pedagogy, curriculum and assessment.

I implement in a labor economics course a project-based assignment involving narrative interviews on the work that people do. Through experiential learning, students investigate how social, political, and economic forces shape the evolution of an occupation. Students apply one or more of the three neoclassical models — the neoclassical model of labor-leisure choice, the neoclassical model of labor demand, and the neoclassical model of the labor market — to an occupation to explain why it is in decline. Furthermore, students hone their social skills through collaborating with their groupmates, conducting narrative interviews with strangers, and delivering a TED-style talk to their classmates. I draw on student presentations and reflections to demonstrate learning outcomes.

This study starts by examining the relationship between procrastination and grades. I use a large sample (n = 17,241) of timed submissions of online assessments, where having multiple observations for each individual makes it possible to control for individual fixed effects. The data confirm a significant negative relationship between procrastination and grades. To address procrastination, two “nudges” encouraging earlier submission were tested with a smaller class group. The first was a communication about social norms relating to submission times; and the second was an information nudge highlighting grade disadvantages of late submission. Disappointingly, neither nudge led to earlier average submission times. This finding adds to a small body of work suggesting that nudges might be less effective when trying to change habitual behaviours.

A large body of literature documents that school-based financial education generally improves financial knowledge, yet little is known about the effect of instruction in the broader economic domain. This paper evaluates the effect of a curriculum reform introducing mandatory economic education on economic competence and knowledge in German lower stream schools, in which students have lower socio-economic status and end up having lower incomes when entering the workforce. While we find small but positive effects on basic economic knowledge and interest in economic matters, we observe insignificant effects on competences, i.e., factual and procedural knowledge in the economic domain. Quantile regressions reveal that the effect on students’ knowledge is widely consistent across the entire distribution. With regard to socio-demographic characteristics, we observe strong gender differences already before adulthood.

Recent research suggests educators can enhance the depth of capstone projects by assigning projects with real-world applications. We illustrate how the case method can be adapted for an undergraduate research experience course. We present an example case study project used in an economic consulting capstone course. Student teams receive a case narrative that includes a real-world request for a proposal. In response, they must formulate a research question, identify and analyze appropriate data to address it, and prepare several business memorandums, a final proposal, and an oral presentation to share their findings. We argue that while traditional undergraduate research helps students develop general data literacy and critical thinking skills, a case study format is better suited to simulate how these skills will be used once students enter their professional lives.

Distributed practice improves learning by requiring the brain to expend extra effort retrieving prior learning after a time delay. I examine whether repeating the most troublesome homework question on the next assignment improves exam performance within one large upper-level undergraduate economics course. I compare exam outcomes of students enrolled in Fall 2017 as my control group (N = 136) with those of the intervention group in Spring 2018 (N = 163). Adjusting for differences in student characteristics, the intervention was associated with a statistically significant (at the 90% level) increase of 2.44% in final exam scores, with raw average scores of 84.6% versus 81.7%. No difference was found post-intervention in overall course scores, while small increases for midterms. Subgroup analysis suggests the benefits may accrue more to the strongest and weakest performers. Findings suggest that repeating troublesome problems could improve learning in economics.

Recent global events have forced a reexamination of the teaching tools that we make use of in higher education. We present our findings from a pilot, using Twitter as an extension to the learning environment for economics students at the University of Manchester and draw lessons for the use of this platform as part of a taught course. We suggest that, whilst popular in terms of personal adoption with students, the use of the Twitter platform is not empirically important for learning outcomes, with the important exception of where students have a history of lower performance. As a result, we suggest that targeted use may prove more warranted where the range of abilities is wide.

This paper uses a semester-long field experiment to analyze the effect of the use of laptops in the classroom on a neighboring student’s ability to learn. Students were randomly assigned a seat during each lecture, creating random exposure to laptops. Each lecture concluded with a short quiz to assess learning outcomes. Simple OLS estimates show statistically significant but practically small effects of laptop exposure. However, these effects are not significant when using a panel data approach, suggesting they are the result of omitted variable bias.

The One Minute Paper (OMP) is a formative assessment technique which provides scaffolding for students to build knowledge. This study uses a theory elaboration approach to develop the Multidimensional Model of the One-Minute Paper. The model is conceptualised by connecting preliminary models with the empirical observations from a qualitative study. The findings are based on the results from student OMP responses, student focus groups and lecturer interviews.

The study takes advantage of a natural experiment to provide a multidimensional view across five facets (student/teacher perspective; time; culture; teaching delivery method; and class size). Thematic analysis supported a re-conceptualisation of the model. Using economics as an exemplar, the research indicated that the OMP supports learning and teaching via the three core constructs (Connections; Functionings; and Environmental Context), which are all influenced by a number of identified and distinguishable sub-constructs.

The identification of the importance of the Environmental Context was a novel finding, as were two of its distinguishable sub-constructs. First, cultural differences can impact the perceived effectiveness of the OMP and therefore they should be accounted for in the design and implementation phase. Second, there are potential additional benefits to the OMP when used in an online environment. These findings take on greater significance in a post-pandemic world where inevitably more teaching will be delivered virtually.

The rapid shift to online learning during the Covid-19 pandemic led to widespread migration to online / blended delivery across UK Higher Education. This has prompted renewed interest in identifying the features of virtual learning environments (VLEs) which students value and are most helpful in academic development and attainment. Using the experience of delivery on an undergraduate module both before and after the introduction of an online delivery model, we use a revealed preference framework to analyse the influence of cognitive load on the value students attach to VLE features in combination with other learning resources. We also use regression analysis to examine which learning resources are crucial to attainment. Our findings suggests that students avoid cognitive overload by being selective in their use of learning resources. They showed a greater preference for both familiar and passive learning resources like lectures, lecture recordings and seminars in both learning environments. Students exhibited a lower preference for active VLE features - multiple-choice quizzes, open-ended questions and discussion forums. Nonetheless, use of open-ended questions along with lecture recordings and lecture slides had a significantly positive impact on academic attainment in the online learning environment. This supports instrumentalism in the use of these resources. Students were more selective in developing deeper understanding using online open-ended questions. Our results imply that module designers need to accept that such resources will be used more selectively. However, they should still be provided to encourage active, deeper learning.